


Real Time and Colour

by astralis



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-03
Updated: 2008-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-16 17:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralis/pseuds/astralis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every now and then they get to sleep in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real Time and Colour

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime in the middle of season three. No real spoilers, but a brief mention of Will. Title from Brooke Fraser's 'Waste Another Day'.

_Real Time and Colour_

It was the sunlight that woke JJ, falling onto her face through a gap in the curtains. Emily, lying on her stomach, her face turned away from the window and framed by one arm, was still asleep, and so JJ, warm and comfortable, let herself drift, half-waking, half-sleeping.

It had been one hell of a week.

They'd got in late last night from Athens, Georgia, where they'd spent five days working on a case and still been too late to save a teenage girl from being raped and murdered. Emily had found the body and JJ had been the one to break the news to the parents, so they were two for two on 'really bad shit'. They'd spent the plane ride home lying opposite each other, dozing off for a minute or two and then waking, listening to the soft roar of the jet's engines and the quiet beeping of Reid's video game and Hotch and Rossi's murmured conversation. JJ loved having Emily be the first thing she saw when she woke up, but she preferred waking up in bed with Emily to waking up on the jet with Emily.

Emily looked so peaceful now, her skin pale – maybe almost too pale – against the dark green pillowcase. JJ, watching the gentle movement of her face, had a sudden urge to just _touch_ her. After all, she'd spent the whole damn week mostly resisting the urge, playing professional, Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, FBI, with badge and gun and the cool confident exterior she worked so hard to maintain. It took so little for Emily to set her off balance – a sympathetic look, a sideways smile, a casual touch – that some days it took everything JJ had not to fall into Emily's arms then and there. Now, free to touch (as though they hadn't been touching all night, Emily's body close against hers) JJ ran the back of her fingers gently over Emily's hair. She didn't move and JJ kept going, her arm setting a rhythm of its own as she lay, watching Emily, a sleepy haze blocking out the rest of the world.

It was a half hour or so before Emily began to wake, frowning and stretching and making a little whimpering noise. JJ stilled and watched as Emily blinked a couple of times, yawned, and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Did I wake you up?” JJ asked, her voice automatically a whisper, shying away from anything that would break the moment or intrude on their isolated, peaceful world.

“No,” Emily said, smiling, a smile that could, and maybe would, break JJ's heart. She yawned again and touched her fingers to JJ's cheek. “I can't believe we don't have to work today.”

“It's been a long time coming.” JJ snuggled down, pulling the covers further up over her shoulders, her eyes locked on Emily's. They'd never had a morning like this, just the two of them, with no phones ringing or alarm clocks buzzing in their ears. They'd never had a morning like ordinary people got every weekend, to lie in bed, read the paper, make love. There'd always been something, and today, miraculously, there was nothing but them. If she'd ever had doubts about breaking it off with Will (and she was pretty sure she hadn't) this was enough to ease them: she was in bed with Emily Prentiss, and Emily was looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Yeah,” Emily said, quietly. “What do you want to do today?”

JJ weighed the sun shining outside against being in Emily's bed, hidden away from all the horrors outside these four walls. Emily was an easy winner.“We could stay here.”

“We could,” Emily agreed, tracing a slow, torturous path over JJ's cheekbone with her fingertips. JJ shivered at the touch, and relaxed into it. Emily Prentiss was going to be the death of her one of these days.

“Are you hungry?”

JJ pressed a kiss into Emily's palm, taking her own small revenge. “A little.”

“Okay. Want some icecream?” Emily asked, with the wicked grin that, JJ had learned, usually preceded some new and interesting kind of sex.

“For breakfast?”

“Why not?”

JJ searched for a good reason, and came up empty. “Okay.”

“Back in a minute.” All trace of sleepiness gone, Emily flung back the covers and disappeared, leaving JJ alone in the big bed. Her bare feet (toenails painted scarlet, JJ had noticed) thudded softly through the apartment as she ran down the stairs. She was back quickly, toting three cartons of icecream, two spoons and a bottle of chocolate sauce. “I didn't know what you wanted,” she said, getting back into bed, “so I brought it all.”

“I can see that,” said JJ, who had exactly one carton of generic-brand chocolate icecream in her freezer at home, and still wasn't entirely sure that she really wanted icecream for breakfast. She sat up and took the proffered spoon and a carton of something chocolate and caramel. Next time she wanted to reproach herself for being boring and conventional, she'd remember this.

It was perfect, and decadent, and delightfully rebellious. JJ fell in love a little deeper every time Emily did something like this, and she'd started to wonder how much more there was to discover and how much further there was to fall.

“Do you do this a lot?” she asked after the first mouthful, seeing the look of sheer, mischievous delight on Emily's face and unable to suppress her own smile even if she'd wanted.

Emily shrugged casually. “When I have time. I did it a lot as a kid.”

JJ stopped herself from asking what Emily's parents had thought of that and instead wondered if they'd even known. “We need to do it more often.”

“Definitely.” Emily dug out a spoonful of banana chocolate chip and held it out, apparently pleased with herself, her ritual, and the fact that JJ liked it. “Here. Try this.”

JJ opened her mouth and let Emily feed her the icecream. She was suddenly overwhelmed by Emily; Emily who wore Kevlar with as much grace as silk, Emily who had faced up to some of the worst horrors life had to offer and still found room to smile. “It's good,” she said, belatedly, meaning the icecream but referring to Emily as well.

Emily grinned again. “I know.”

“This is better,” JJ said, teasing just because she could.

“Blasphemy.”

JJ held out a spoonful. “Take that back.”

Emily ate it, pulling a silly face as she did so, and said, with her mouth full, “We might have to agree to disagree on this.”

“But it's important,” JJ said, something light and happy uncoiling and spreading inside her. The effect Emily had on her, body and soul, was both liberating and terrifying, and she was never quite sure what to do with that feeling.

“ _Vitally_ important,” Emily agreed, digging into her icecream and eating it with an exaggerated flourish.

JJ did the same, watching Emily from the corner of her eye as she ate. Emily looked almost as peaceful and contented as she had asleep, and what was more, she was watching JJ, a smile flickering on her lips. JJ was pretty sure that, while Emily managed to look beautiful and sophisticated, she just looked like a middle-schooler caught eying her crush across the classroom.

There were times – plenty of times, actually – that JJ woke up in Emily's arms, or glanced at her across a briefing room, or watched her interrogate a suspect, and wondered what the hell Emily saw in her. She hadn't been insecure since high school, and it bothered her. She didn't know what to do with that feeling, either.

After several minutes of the back and forth sideways glances, Emily put down her spoon. “You okay?”

“I'm wondering how much icecream I can eat before I start feeling sick.” It was true, and sounded a lot less needy than _why are you with me_. There were some things Emily didn't need to know, some things JJ needed to rationalise in her own mind.

“Hmmm.” Emily studied her carton of icecream as if it had just appeared in her hand and she'd never even seen it before. “Good question.”

“I'd rather not spend the day sick in bed, as fun as this is.”

“I don't want you to either. And you're probably right. If you've had enough, I'll put it away.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Em.”

Emily took the things back downstairs and returned with that wicked smile of hers. She was wearing a pink cotton camisole and striped pajama pants, and looked as sexy as hell. It could have been the smile. JJ sat stock still, watching, as Emily knelt on the bed and crawled up, straddling JJ and stopping just an inch in front of her face. “Hey, baby.”

“Hey,” JJ said, finding the voice she thought she'd lost. Emily was intoxicating at the best of times, and even more so up close like this. Maybe she was addicted. Maybe three days (two days, a day) without Emily would send her into withdrawal.

“So. We have all day. Just you and me...”

First the smile, and now the voice. JJ was melting.

“We do.”

“We should find something to do,” Emily whispered, tilting her face ever closer to JJ's.

Oh, God. This was going to be a very, very good day. “I think we should.”

And then Emily kissed her. Soft, and gentle, and tasting of banana and chocolate. JJ's body responded of its own accord, kissing back (oh God, kissing Emily: she could never get enough of this), one hand going to Emily's hair and the other arm sliding around her waist to hold her tight. Just kissing, and it was _wonderful_.

This was the thing – well, one of the many, many things – that JJ loved about Emily. They could just kiss. No pressure, no performance anxiety, no rush. Oh, JJ knew where this was going to end up and she wanted it, with every inch of her body, but on a day like this she was willing to take her time. After all, they had, for once in their lives, all the time in the world.

“Do you know I've been wanting to do this all week?” Emily asked, between kisses, sounding just as breathless as JJ was feeling.

“Yes. Me too.” JJ was finding talking even more of a problem than it had been before, her chest tight from anticipation and a slight lack of oxygen.

“Oh. That's good.” Emily slid under the covers so she was lying on top of JJ, nothing separating them but layers of thin cotton. “So,” Emily whispered, kissing JJ again, and again, tongue sliding past her lips as JJ slipped her hand under Emily's camisole to touch the smooth skin of her back. “Tell me. Exactly what have you been wanting to do all week?”

JJ smiled, and decided to show rather than tell. It was more fun that way.


End file.
